


Sleep by This Hand of Mine

by orphan_account



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Goodbye Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, post-LL25, spoilers for lost light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 05:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18190601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They had an unspoken understanding that this would be their last night together.





	Sleep by This Hand of Mine

The grandfather clock that they kept in the living room of their home was modeled after the antiques that humans often displayed. They had always seemed to do so with a sense of pride, Ratchet had once observed as he’d regaled Drift with tales of his various exploits on Earth, as if the simple oak object was a precious relic that had managed to weather the time that it was crafted to tell. 

And there was a certain beauty to them, Drift had once conceded as he ran his fingers along the smooth, oaken side of the clock that had been modified to translate and scale unfamiliar units into ones that had meaning to Cybertronians. It had a low chime that would resonate throughout the rooms and corridors of his and Ratchet’s house, a rich sound that seemed to carry with it the wisdom that was surely etched in the aged wood of its body, and the mesmerizing pendulum of the display was far more charismatic than the configuring of pixels into numbers.

Drift had once found the drone of the clock to be soothing. Since the diagnosis, it had turned far more haunting - sinister, almost, in the way that it maintained its status quo of monotony even in the face of the maelstrom that had become Drift’s life.

His nights had gradually begun to creep longer as he’d find himself transfixed by the sight of the seconds ticking by, his trance broken only by Ratchet’s insistence that he accompany him to their berth. It was one that was occasionally colored by a seductive drawl, while other times it was little more than a terse command that carried with it the connotation of _stop moping and enjoy the time we still have together._

“You plan on dying in that chair?” Ratchet gruffly asked, too on the nose for Drift’s taste. His voice had an underlying exhaustion to it that was mirrored by the way his steps were labored as he approached Drift. “C’mon, kid. Don’t make me carry you.”

It was an empty threat. While Ratchet had once been more than capable of doing such a thing - often playfully, hoisting Drift off to their bedroom with a lustful glint in his eye and a spring to his step that was almost youthful - they both knew that attempting such a feat now would only lead to nothing short of a humiliating disaster. 

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Drift replied. His gaze remained trained on the ticking hands and their unwavering march in that same circular pattern. 

“I wasn’t asking,” Ratchet said, and though he was clearly annoyed by Drift’s insistence on crawling apathetically towards oblivion, his words didn’t carry the edge that he had always been so liberal in employing in the past. “Come to bed, Drift. You’re making me feel old, sitting there like that.”

Ratchet always had been adept in the art of self-deprecating humor, but whereas it had once managed to evoke either a laugh from Drift or a protestation on Ratchet’s behalf - _“Please, you hardly look a day over three million”_ \- it was now met with a somber silence. 

“Please,” Ratchet said, his voice a quiet entreaty that didn’t carry the commanding tone he’d supposedly intended to use; though Drift knew, stubborn as Ratchet was, that he always did hold a high respect for the autonomy of others, and his interactions with Drift were an exemplification of such rather than an exception. “I’ve had a long day. I’d really like nothing more than to make love to my conjunx.”

Drift was acutely aware of the fact that Ratchet’s long days had become the norm at some point. He knew better than to make some cheeky remark about the unexpected sentimentality to Ratchet’s word choice, and how he managed to make something that had once been little more than a means to an end a lifetime ago sound passionate and sincere.

“I’d like that, too,” Drift admitted softly, and he finally accepted Ratchet’s hand and allowed himself to be guided out of the armchair.

The clock chimed as if in farewell as the pair left the dim, oppressive atmosphere of the living room and stepped into their bedroom, but it was with a grim acceptance that Drift acknowledged the same tune would herald his inevitable return.

“I’ve drawn up a bath,” Ratchet said in place of a proper invitation. He made his way towards the washroom that was adjacent to their bedroom, his steps clunky and strained.

Drift followed silently, feeling deafened by the clicks and whirs of gears and joints doing their damnedest to function in the face of their own mortality.

Ratchet dipped his hand into the large oil bath that was the centerpiece of their washroom. It was a rather opulent feature in what was otherwise a humble and homely abode, but a younger Drift had been insistent on it.

“Feels nice,” Ratchet said. 

Drift tested it for himself. The bath was just beyond what he would consider to be a comfortable warmth, but he had long ago learned to bear a little discomfort when it meant giving Ratchet’s seizing joints and rusting servos a moment of peace from the chore that getting Ratchet through the day had become. 

“Can’t believe I tried to talk you out of getting this,” Ratchet said as he lowered himself into the bath. The oil rippled pleasantly around his frame, welcoming him home. 

“You called it ‘the kind of thing hoity-toity rich people keep in their homes,’” Drift said, managing to crack a hint of a smile at the expense of his Ratchet impression. He was never able to resist doing so when it came to teasing his surly conjunx. “Remember? We built this home for ourselves from the ground up and you still insisted on being so stubbornly utilitarian about it.”

“I guess you have a good idea or two every now and then,” Ratchet conceded with a grunt. He closed his optics and leaned his head back against the edge of the bath, reveling in the feeling of the warm oil seeping through every transformation seam and junction of his frame. “Mhm. I think this was one of your best.”

“Even more than bonding to you?” Drift ventured, his lips still quirking with that sense of mischief that Ratchet always brought out of him.

Ratchet let out a bark of laughter. It was hoarse and unrefined, the latter of which Drift had always had an endearment to while the former was a solemn reminder of the dwindling life behind it. “Absolutely. That was just about the craziest idea you’ve ever had, kid.”

“You’ve done a pretty bad job of convincing me as such,” Drift said, accentuating his point by delivering a well deserved splash. “You were also more than just a little on board with the idea.”

“Oh yeah?” Ratchet challenged, and Drift had to respect the way he didn’t recoil, even in the face of Drift’s barrage. 

“Yeah,” Drift said, and in a smooth motion he seated himself in Ratchet’s lap, draping his arms around Ratchet’s neck and caging his hips with his thighs. “You looked a little something like this.”

“I must be getting senile,” Ratchet said dryly, but Drift could tell from the way Ratchet’s hands skirted along his lower back that the remark was as playful as it was painfully self-aware. “I think I’ll need a reminder.”

“You were underneath me,” Drift said. His smile grew sultry as he trailed a hand down Ratchet’s chest, pausing just above his spark to appreciate the faint thrum of life that pulsed against his fingers. “Just like this. And it was the most relaxed I’d ever seen you. Because apparently Rodimus was on to something when he said that the trick to getting you to stop being so uptight was to get you laid.”

“He said that, huh,” Ratchet muttered, but he said nothing to the contrary.

“You were beautiful, you know.” Drift’s voice gentled, his expression turning from coquettish to sober. “You always have been.”

“You don’t gotta lie to me,” Ratchet snorted, but he averted his gaze as if expressing such a sentiment that he had once believed had become a burden. “I’m not like I used to be. Haven’t been for a long time.”

“I was blind when we first met, remember?” Drift murmured. He cupped Ratchet’s cheek, the gesture as tender as it was intended to keep Ratchet from turning away from a truth that Drift vehemently believed in. “My impression of you was limited to your touch and your voice. And those things haven’t changed. So you’re the same Ratchet I’ve always known, and you can argue all you want - not like you’ve ever needed permission to do _that_ \- but it won’t change the fact that you’re beautiful to me.”

Ratchet didn’t have any clever retort. His face felt warm beneath Drift’s palm, a fact which gave Drift a wicked sort of satisfaction at having forced Ratchet to consider how he might look from a point of view that was far more charitable than his own. 

“That was the first time we made love,” Drift said, the cadence of his voice conveying how the emotions associated with the experience were as raw as they had been centuries ago. 

“Mm. Now that I do remember.” Ratchet chuckled, dropping his act of ignorance in favor of savoring the memory that Drift had set the scene for. “Practically dragged me back to your habsuite so you could jump me.”

Drift’s hand flirted with the plating of Ratchet’s pelvis, each caress with his fingers as suggestive as the heat in his gaze. “You’d kept me waiting long enough. You don’t know how long I’d fantasized about it.”

“About giving me the best damn ride of my life, huh?” Ratchet shamelessly took Drift’s hand and placed it on his warming panel, as if to prove that his hunger for Drift’s mind, body, and soul had managed to withstand time’s cruel mission to strip all of life’s pleasures away. “And was the wait worth it?”

“You know the answer to that, you aft,” Drift said. He dipped his head down so he could graze his lips along Ratchet’s neck, pleased with the way each word and exhalation had Ratchet shivering in his arms. “But I still would have asked you to bond with me, even if it wasn’t.”

Ratchet tried to come up with some quip about how his charming personality couldn’t really compensate for an eternity of bad sex, but found that words eluded him in the face of each sensual brush of Drift’s mouth against his neck. His own lips parted, letting out a breath that carried with it all the praises he was often too stubborn to voice.

“Drift...”

“Hm?” Drift continued to palm at Ratchet’s panel, yearning to rub against it with his own.

“Take me to bed,” Ratchet whispered. “I want to do this right.”

A gentle hand on Drift’s chin directed his gaze to meet Ratchet’s, and it never ceased to amaze him how often their dynamic shifted in such subtle ways that left them in a perfect equilibrium. 

There was a quiet acceptance in Ratchet’s expression, nestled amongst the signs of age that Drift had so ardently tried to deny, or at least selectively ignore in favor of focusing on the glimmer of vitality that would occasionally make itself known when Ratchet’s fiery personality shone through. 

“Ok,” Drift agreed after an agonizing moment of contemplation.

Before Ratchet could even attempt to stand Drift had already wrapped his arms around him in his best approximation of a bridal carry. Their trek to the bedroom wasn’t quite as elegant as it might have been when Ratchet was better able to support his own weight, or when their frames weren’t slick with the lingering warmth of the oil from the bath. But they made it work, and as Drift laid Ratchet down on their berth with a level of care that was reverent, Drift tried not to dwell on the fact that this would be his last chance to do so.

To see Ratchet’s expression when Drift slipped inside him.

To watch as Ratchet came undone beneath him as he kissed the corona of his exposed spark, in the closest approximation he had to laying a kiss on Ratchet’s soul.

To feel Ratchet’s release and the insistent tug of it bringing him towards his own.

To lay their bared chests together and experience all around and within him a final confession in their autumnal hours.

“I look at you and I see a life worth lived,” Ratchet said, and the smile he bore gave him the illusion of youth with its innocence. 

He said so despite everything that Drift had done with the chance at life he’d been given by a pair of hands and a vote of genuine confidence. Drift felt as if he’d been stripped bare beneath the weight of a stare that saw him as worthwhile, as worthy of love, even when the mutilated chamber that housed his core was a relic of millennia that he believed spoke to the contrary. 

The following morning Drift would carry those words with him as he found Ratchet seated facing the clock, a Spectralist charm that would grant safe travels cradled in his limp hand.


End file.
